This invention relates generally to the field of livestock handling and more specifically to machine for alternating conveyor belt livestock loading.
As the production and processing of livestock, in particular poultry, has become centralized with hundreds if not thousands of animals raised and housed in one location and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of animals processed in one centralized location, the need arose to efficiently transport large numbers of animals from point of origin to the processing plants or other locations. Therefore, customized vehicles able to contain the maximum number of animals and loading methods to load the maximum number of animals most quickly with the least amount of stress upon and aggravation of said animals have been devised.
At present, the most common transportation means, particularly for poultry, is a semi-trailer having cages or coops arranged side by side to form horizontal tiers and vertical columns. And the most efficient loading means is a device having a conveyor system having a plurality of different moving belts communicating with the ground, where animals may be herded thereonto, and the interior of a coop where the animals may be deposited thus filling said coop.
These devices generally have a main conveyor system which may be raised or lowered and which transfers animals to another loading conveyor belt which extends into the coop proximal the back of said coop. This loading conveyor belt moves animals into the coop and is progressively withdrawn as the coop is filled, at which time the coop is closed and the conveyor system is either lowered or raised to the next coop in the column and the process repeated.
When each coop in a column has been loaded, the trailer must be moved to align an empty column with the loader. This process is repeated until each column is filled.
The present state of the art is an improvement over the older methods which were labor intensive and usually involved a team of workmen who captured animals by hand and stuffed them into coops or passed them to others who did the loading. This caused much stress both upon workmen and animals and injuries to both were common. However, present methods still give occasion to disadvantages.
In example, when a coop is filled and the machine must be re-oriented to engage an empty coop and/or when a column of coops is full and the trailer must be moved, the main conveyor belt must be shut off. Thus the loading of an entire semi-trailer requires constant stopping and starting of the main conveyor belt. This causes excess wear and tear on the machine, excess energy consumption, and excess stress upon the animals being loaded. In addition, every time a column of coops is filled, the trailer must be moved.
In contrast to the present state of the art devices, the instant art comprises means to immediately load a coop disposed side by side in an adjacent column. Thus, the instant art cuts, by at least half, the number of times a trailer being loaded must be moved thereby lessening the time required to completely load said trailer. In additional contrast, the instant art is contrived so that as said instant art is re-oriented from communication with full coops to empty coops, the main conveyor belt may run substantially continuously.
Thus, the instant art reduces the time required to load a trailer and reduces the stress on animals being loaded thereby advancing the art of loading livestock onto trailers.